From Four Hundred Years, Britain and Thailand, an informal presentation by Ian Morson.

The first properly documented English visitor to Siam was Ralph Fitch in 1586. He arrived in Chang Mai which at the time was in Burmese hands.

A custom that he described in more detail than any of his other brief accounts was the curious male custom of “wearing bunches of little balls in their privy members.” These adornments were inserted under the foreskin when a youth became of age at about twenty or more. Some of the little balls, more like ball bearings than anything else, were made of brass or silver, “but those for the king were gilded and made with great cunning and ring like a little bell.”  Ordinary common people had to made do with lead which naturally did “ring but little”.

To add spice to the tale Fitch continued by saying that the king would sometimes take out some of his ball bearings and give them to a favoured nobleman who greatly esteemed such a gift. The writer, Michael Edwardes, in a rather naïve manner, claims to be unclear as to the purpose of theses modifications to the male member although Fitch did point out that “the women do desire them.”

Every one wants to play with my ding-a-ling too